But Where Sirius does have an edge is in their ability to live stream events - they had fantastic coverage of the massive Coachella music festival this year. And of course you can get it where you don't have cell reception for online services and you don't have to download your playlists in advance.

Let's just say the internet stream/app uses much less compression than the satellite stream[i'm not really sure if they both use the same compression algorithm that kind've technical stuff is beyond me].

Let's just say the internet stream/app uses much less compression than the satellite stream[i'm not really sure if they both use the same compression algorithm that kind've technical stuff is beyond me].

Yeah well better than just making stuff up. Besides sat streaming rates are variable not fixed like on a CD.

I'll add my two cents. I've had a 2014 Mazda6 with Sirius Radio on a Bose system in it for 2 years. I let the 3 month free demo period lapse because I really didn't like the sound quality.

This past January we purchased a 2015 Nissan Altima SV with the regular (non-Bose) speaker system that had XM Radio in it. The quality was actually pretty good and it was acceptable to me. Still not as good as what I get at higher quality through my Google Play Music subscription, but good enough.

So recently Sirius/XM sent me a letter telling me they wanted to give me 2 free months of Sirius in the Mazda. Since the quality in the Altima was so good, I decided to take them up on the offer, figuring they'd improved the sound quality. However, upon spending some time listening to it in the Mazda, i can tell it sounds just as bad as the day I bought the car. It simply sounds like a low bitrate MP3, muddled, whisky, and sloppy.

In the Altima, which has no subwoofer and basic speakers, the XM radio sounds much better. I can tell the bitrate is much higher. I cannot believe Sirius/XM is still putting Sirus receivers in new vehicles. They should have started phasing these out a long time ago!

I am going to let the Sirius subscription expire and may keep the XM one in the car if the price is right. Granted, satellite radio is more convenient than streaming from your phone, and they offer a good variety of conetent for news, kids and sports fans. But with Apple Car Play and Android Auto hitting more and more new models, it is going to be easier and easier to stream right from the headunit. I stream from Google Play Music at 256kbps. It sounds glorious on the Bose system in my Mazda, unlike Sirius.

Yes, I enjoyed 10 years of XM in several vehicles, but have never regretted cancelling Sirius for my BMW, it was awful. But since then I've gotten hooked on various podcasts for news, and Google Play music (or even my old iPod) for music. So I don't think I'd go back.

In the past I heard Broadcast stations pressured the FCC to require Sirius/XM to broadcast at a limited bandwidth.

I never heard that one. It always seemed to me that they were going for max quantity over max quality or even a balance.

250 channels, even if very few people watch the newer channels, sell better than 100 channels. DirecTV did the same thing with their bandwidth. I don't know if they still do but they used to go through the same growing pains with adding new channels and the customer seeing lots of pixelation.

Here's what I noticed . The Sirius internet stream through my home stereo is crystal clear perfect . ( I have a high end system ) . On my iPhone and headphones , it sounds awesome . My sportster 5 in my boombox sounds pretty good . When I use my sportster 5 in my truck ( high end system) it sounds terrible . Like mono sound . I use to have a sportster 6 before I upgraded my truck stereo , I don't remember it sounding so bad . What I don't get , is how can my current sportster 5 sound so much better in the boombox than my truck when my truck has a superior set up in speakers and amps ? I think I will start asking to borrow other people's head units quickly and give em a try to make sure it isn't my head unit .

Well, I for one am thankful every day for the App. I never noticed how thin and tinny my Sirius Stiletto sounded when I got it, but over the years it's painfully obvious that they've had to cram in tons of music on a limited amount of bandwidth. The new app is horribly annoying at times, but at least the sound is terrific.

siriusxm changed their audio streaming encoding/support a couple weeks ago, obsoleting a bunch of old non-sirius/non-xm internet radios, and requiring updates to many others including the TTR100 table radio.
Interesting that it affected the stiletto too, with no software update possible.
btw, there's a TTR200 now too, with some nice bonus features including rewind/record.

fwiw, i've got sirius traffic/fuel/info service via 'mylink' in new car too; the traffic info seems rather stale compared to google maps or apple maps . but the instant gasbuddy fuel price info is nice and can easily save the driver more $ than the cost of subscription.

Very heady posts and reading. Thanks to all you Sirius/XM nerds for adding to the body of knowledge that us nerd wannabes can read but not completely understand. However, I think I understand the audio quality issue as it applies to my current situation: I've noticed a substantial loss of audio quality on all music channels. Don't know if it's occurred recently or I've just ignored it until recently.

At any rate, based on what I've gleaned from this thread it sounds like it's time for me to give up the old SiriusConnect Home Tuner (SC-H1) and move on to streaming SiriusXM through my internet enabled AV receiver. Since my AV receiver isn't Wifi capable, I'll need to run CAT 5 to it from my router upstairs. I always did enjoy spending time with the spiders and silverfish in the crawl space under the house.

Very heady posts and reading. Thanks to all you Sirius/XM nerds for adding to the body of knowledge that us nerd wannabes can read but not completely understand. However, I think I understand the audio quality issue as it applies to my current situation: I've noticed a substantial loss of audio quality on all music channels. Don't know if it's occurred recently or I've just ignored it until recently.

At any rate, based on what I've gleaned from this thread it sounds like it's time for me to give up the old SiriusConnect Home Tuner (SC-H1) and move on to streaming SiriusXM through my internet enabled AV receiver. Since my AV receiver isn't Wifi capable, I'll need to run CAT 5 to it from my router upstairs. I always did enjoy spending time with the spiders and silverfish in the crawl space under the house.

They do sale wireless bridges. device that plugs in and connects to your wifi giving you a local network port

I think a lot of the quality differences between cars could be due to line output of the sat radio tuner. In past VW's i've owned with factory sirius the tuner was connected to the radio digitally and sounded pretty decent.

In my older bmw I have an aftermarket sirius radio hardwired with RCA cables. The sound quality was horrible until I added a line level amp between the sirius tuner and the car's radio. The SQ has greatly improved. This leads me to believe the amp in some of the tuners is extremely underpowered.

I think a lot of the quality differences between cars could be due to line output of the sat radio tuner. In past VW's i've owned with factory sirius the tuner was connected to the radio digitally and sounded pretty decent.

2010 Passat here and sound quality problems are with the source. Sounds like a low bit rate (like 32-64kbps) MP3.

The sound that comes out (from an XM perspective) has been really relevant to the type and kind of radio and how you connected it to your listening devices. E.g. I have had several XM head units (both alpine) that sounded fantastic. The Alpine guys optimized the audio pretty well (these are old 1.0 based radios 2002-2005). The latest head unit I dropped into a beater car I have (CDE-SXM145BT) I was able to compare the XMp3i and SG Note4 via FM transmitter versus the alpine and the sound was excellent even down into the CT-ACC+ (er eACC+ v1) ranges when compared against the XMp3i/SG Note 4 on internet.

Now I have "heard head units" in cars that made me want to scream, and I have been able to detect that the Onyx Plus out guns the audio on the XMp3i, but your mileage may vary based on your channel, audio preference, how you are listening.

Now if someone has the answer to this (it wasn't searchable on Xmfan or here) ... I was trying to figure out the default bit rate of the SiriusXM Lynx and it appears to default to the highest 320bit version. I put the device behind one of my Cisco VPN heads and watched the bandwidth graphs, where I saw the Lynx grab up to 1.5 Mbps on initial song launch and then it would oscillate between 200 and 600 Kbps based on a 5 second snapshot. Does anyone know this answer? I called listener care and believe it or not the tech's literally hung up on me three times.

My current radio kit (of which 3 out of 4 are my preferred ones) ... Onyx Plus and Onyx Lynx for mobile, and Alpine CDE-SXM145BT and the XM 1.0 CDA-9855.

I was sitting in my truck outside a fiends house where my iPhone could pick up wifi . So I did a test. I started up,the Sirius app on my phone and plugged it into my car stereo. Turned the head unit to aux ( my sirius setting) and switched back and fourth . It took one time and I noticed the app on my iPhone was like night and day to using my sportster 5 through the head unit. The app had my system pumpin , while the Sirius head unit was flat and dull .

I was sitting in my truck outside a fiends house where my iPhone could pick up wifi . So I did a test. I started up,the Sirius app on my phone and plugged it into my car stereo. Turned the head unit to aux ( my sirius setting) and switched back and fourth . It took one time and I noticed the app on my iPhone was like night and day to using my sportster 5 through the head unit. The app had my system pumpin , while the Sirius head unit was flat and dull .

The SIRIUS XM APP can be "SET" in the settings menu as to what level of the stream you want to use.

"These streams were combined using a patented process to form a variable number of channels using a variety of bitrates. Bandwidth is separated into segments of 4-kilobit-per-second virtual "streams" which are combined to form audio and data "channels" of varying bitrates from 4 to 64 kilobits-per-second.[37]

XM preprocessed audio content using Neural Audio processors that are optimized for the aacPlus codec, including spectral band replication (SBR). Audio was stored digitally in Dalet audio library systems using an industry-standard MPEG-1 Layer II at 384 kbit/s, sometimes known as MUSICAM. The audio is further processed by the Neural Audio processors on the way to broadcast."

I absolutely cannot stand to listen to satellite radio for more than half a song... SMH.

Quote:

Originally Posted by STEELERSRULE

Actually READ this thread.

If I read correctly: My Sirius Stiletto 100 would be better served, SOUND QUALITY WISE, while in it's HOME DOCK, to use my ISP for "Satellite Radio", because it sends out those streams at 128Kbps, as opposed to 32-64Kbps being sent out through the Satellites?

Is this right?

My Stiletto 100(using wireless-B. That is laughable. Wireless-G was around in 2006)) receives my Wi-Fi fine(2 bars as opposed to 3 bars on satellite). I mainly use my Stiletto 100 to record H. Stern in the morning.

I know I cannot record the Internet Streams, but do they actually sound better? When I connect, I do get INTERNET PREMIUM on the BOTTOM LINE of my Stiletto 100. It it is then replaced with the time.